


Unexpected Recovery

by Merfilly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 03:58:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9699488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: Mon Mothma, having found a lead on where Malachor was, asks Leia to oversee bringing Fulcrum's body home.Fulcrum doesn't always play by the expected rules.





	

_"No idea how long the power cell will hold out. Again, this is Fulcrum. Any being receiving this message, do not set foot on planet. If you can hear me, I repeat: do not set foot on this planet!"_

The beacon was cobbled together out of ship parts that had never been intended to work together. It showed absolute ingenuity that matched what Leia's records told her to expect.

"We might finally have answers," Mon Mothma said softly. "The probe droids can find nothing to indicate why we should not go now, after over ten years from whatever prompted her to leave that message. I plan to send a retrieval team, find her body, and grant her a state funeral."

"And you want my help why? I was just starting in the Rebellion when she went missing," Leia said. "I only dimly remember her from my father's working with her."

"But you do remember her, and I… the med technicians will not allow me to go so soon after this round of illness," Mon Mothma said softly. "You can positively identify her, I believe, as the original report indicated at least one other female being died on that planet as well."

Leia didn't say the next words. The team could bring both sets of remains, and identification could be done here. Instead, she looked at Mon Mothma and realized there was an issue of dignity at play here. Fulcrum, the founder of Rebel Intelligence, the true organizer behind the early scenes with her father and Mon and Carlist and all the others of Command, was someone that Mon refused to handle with less than full honors, even more than a decade after the death.

"Who was she, really?" Leia asked.

"A child-warrior who saved as many as she could, and grew into a hero for us, when the Republic, the Jedi, and the Fleet had destroyed her entire life," Mon said. "Ahsoka Tano was only seventeen when Empire Day happened. And she never, not once in all the time I knew of her, stopped fighting for the sake of others. 

"I need this, Leia. I need to know that she is given the fullest respect she can be given."

"I'll have Han help me then, instead of a retrieval team," Leia said, a lump in her throat as she realized that Fulcrum, like herself, had never known peace, and that Mon absolutely respected her.

* * *

"Artoo says this place reminds him of two other planets he's been on. One is Dagobah, and the other he says is classified?" Luke called to the others as they stepped out of the _Falcon_ to explore the landing site and try to find their objective. "He's never told me something is classified before."

"Must be something lingering from when he served Captain Antilles," Leia said, even as she scanned the sinister terrain, blaster at the ready. Han and Chewie were similarly on guard as they moved forward, trusting Artoo's sensors and the probe droid explorations. A wrecked ship was considered the likely starting point, and they had landed fairly near to it. 

"Probe droids could find no reason she interdicted the planet, and the beacon gave no details," Han said softly. "If this Fulcrum person was so important, why would she preclude a rescue like that?"

A screeing sound drew their eyes up, and they all tracked a convor, the first living thing they had seen, as it flew toward the wrecked ship. 

"There's no trees, no other animals," Han said, watching this situation unfold with a chill on his spine.

"The Force is odd here," Luke answered, as that bird had all but exploded on his awareness. "But we need to go to the ship." That was an urgent thing. 

"We're supposed to, anyway, but now I'm worried, Farmboy," Leia said, as they cautiously made their way to the wreck.

Chewie twitched the closer they got to it, recognizing the lines of the ship from very old memories of war criminals. When they reached it, and he moved inside, his instincts did not calm at all. Something, a mystery was lingering here, and he was not going to be happy until he knew what it was.

Luke found himself moving almost on autopilot, back, deeper into the ship. They all noted that despite the crash and battle damage, there was also a deliberate removal of parts throughout the vessel.

"Fulcrum built the beacon, but there's more open and showing salvage than just what she made the beacon from," Leia said.

"Someone may have been here first," Han said, making Chewbacca sniff the long-unmoved air. 

"Luke?" Leia questioned, drawing their attention to where he had stopped, staring into a small cabin.

"I don't think we need to worry about storage for a body, Han; Leia," Luke said. "There's a rudimentary stasis pod back here, and it seems to still be functioning."

* * *

Aboard _Home One_ , Ahsoka Tano awakened to find herself surrounded by strangers… and three familiar faces. It had been a long time but the Force made it clear that the Mon Cal was certainly Ackbar, which brought back the sadness of missing Master Fisto. The tallest one, she made out as her friend Chewbacca, from the terrible experience of being hunted and trying to protect the younglings. And the last of the three brought her directly to the ache of her loss of a dear friend… and what that had led to, apparently, with her master. She gave Mon Mothma a very sad smile at those thoughts.

All three of them were staring at her with not a little confusion.

"I thought I said not to set down on the planet," she said, before grimacing at how small her voice sounded… and how little echo she was receiving back. "Kriff it all, another time storm must have hit me after I got in the tube but before I was fully stasis-locked," she complained. 

"Time storm? Unchecked chronal energy?" Ackbar asked. "I have heard of such things, Fulcrum. Is that why the planet was interdicted?"

"No, the planet was very much a Sith trap for us," Ahsoka answered, pushing herself to sit up slowly. "The time storms started when I… when I nearly killed Vader rather than let him escape. It decayed the Temple floor even faster than the destruction was already causing, leading to us being separated.

"I heard a ship escaping as I tried to get out, and saw a whirl of time energy render one of the Inquisitor's bodies into dust in mere moments." She shook her head slowly, unaware of how hard her words were really hitting one of the strangers. "I managed to use the Force to shield myself long enough to make the beacon and to try to make a stasis pod. I had no idea if it would work… and apparently it did to a degree. I suppose I should be thankful it went backwards on my cells rather than forward like the Quizzie," she said.

"What was your plan?" Mon Mothma asked. "I know you, Fulcrum. You would have had one."

Ahsoka grinned. "The pod was, as best I could design it with what I had to work with, set to wake me at intervals. Only… that part failed, apparently." She took in a deep breath. "Which means… I'm possibly staring at the only three people in existence who know me now?"

"There are others who have survived," Mon told her. "But your last direct cell took on a mission to Wild Space several years ago."

Chewbacca said something, and Ahsoka tipped her head, sorting out the gist of it, before her eyes went wide. "Thank you, Chewbacca. I appreciate that offer. Kashyyyk is free?"

"What'd he say?" the very small human woman asked the slightly taller human man wearing a lightsaber.

"I think he offered her a place in his home," the man replied, earning a short nod from the taller one wearing Corellian bloodstripes.

"It is, and so much more, Fulcrum," Ackbar answered that. "I will handle that briefing, if you wish."

Ahsoka was aware of surprise in the strangers at the deference, and wondered how high her friend had climbed in the ranks since she last saw him. Then again, if she was guessing her own outward appearance correctly, it probably did seem odd to them to see a grown man speak like that to a youth.

"Chewbacca, how close to how I looked when you met me am I?" she asked, turning her attention to him again after answering Ackbar affirmatively. The answer of 'very' did not set well with her, and she closed her eyes for a long moment. 

"Your bio-markers all confirm your identity, and the hypno-briefing carried out while you were still in bacta gained us all the answers that were in your file," Mon reassured her. "You are just… a young woman once again."

"If I could take all the Vod'e An there instead," Ahsoka said wishfully.

"We didn't see any evidence of the chronal storms still in effect," the smaller human male said apologetically. 

"Yet her words prove even more that she is Fulcrum," Mon said quietly. "My friend, let me introduce to you the team that brought you back to us. Luke Skywalker… yes, Ahsoka, that is confirmed. Han Solo. Leia Organa, whom you may have met quite some time ago."

"Breha and Bail's daughter," Ahsoka agreed. She looked at each one, nodding, but her eyes came back around to Luke Skywalker, the small human. "No offense, but you're pretty short to be a Skywalker." She tried to keep her knowledge out of her voice, out of her lekku, but it was there.

_Do you know what I have become?_

The words no longer haunted and accused. They only rested on her shoulders as a reminder that the man she had loved was lost to her forever, if she could not find some way to break through the Darkness, as she had broken his mask.

"You knew my father? You carried lightsabers, but I didn't actually dare hope you were Jedi," Luke said.

Ahsoka drew in a deep breath. "I was, once. I am not, any longer. But yes, I knew your father. I knew Anakin Skywalker," she said, watching him, seeing that somehow… he knew. "No matter what else, I know that Anakin Skywalker was once the greatest Jedi to ever live," she added, holding his eyes, and seeing as he straightened fully, glowing softly with family pride. They would talk, soon, after Ackbar had told her all she needed to know about the Rebellion.

* * *

The talk did not go how she had anticipated. Ahsoka was hugging her knees to her chest, crying her eyes out, as Luke awkwardly rested a hand on her shoulder, uncertain how to comfort her.

"He died, in the Light?" she asked finally, just to be reassured on that part.

"Yes. He saved me, and said I saved him," Luke said softly. 

"Then… he is at peace." Ahsoka rested her forehead on her knees, missing her headdress, missing the armor that no longer fit, missing… having a purpose. The Rebellion had broken the Empire; all else was clean up. She did not need to find and save her Master; he was dead. She was terrified to learn if Rex had gone with the _Ghost_ or if he was already 'walking far away', as the Vod'e An said for death. 

She was physically sixteen, seventeen at maximum, and she had no guidance to her life now.

"I know you said you were no longer a Jedi, but… I'm not really much of one myself," Luke said softly. "Ben only had a few days with me, and my time with Yoda was short. Can… would… I'd be honored to learn from you," he managed to say, and Ahsoka looked at him with wide eyes.

"You went up against Darth Vader with that little training, and not only survived, but by your own words, beat him back, and you think I have things to teach you?"

"There's more than combat to being a Jedi, from things the older ones have said," Luke told her. "Mon Mothma speaks of negotiators. Admiral Ackbar has mentioned Jedi healers. And I can't be the actual last Jedi; there have to be people who have the potential to use the Force, and I am going to need help teaching them to do so!"

Ahsoka slowly smiled at him, unfolding her legs and nodding.

"You're right. I spent all of my padawan years learning to lead men in a war determined to kill us all, but there are other skills to hone," she said. "I've even managed to recover a few holocrons. If we can get those from where I hid them, we'll have a start on it. But I'm telling you here and now, Luke Skywalker. I'm not condoning an Order that fails to understand how important a person's ties are!"

"Why would you?" Luke asked in horror at that, sending her into laughter and a hug around his neck.

"Oh, you are going to hate some of the stories I tell you about the Jedi," she assured him, giving herself over to the new future the Force wished of her.

In the distance, she thought she heard a convor singing to itself in pleasure.


End file.
